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2011 11: 99Marketing TheoryBarbara J. Phillips and Edward F. McQuarrie

fashion advertisingContesting the social impact of marketing: A re-characterization of women's

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Article

Contesting the socialimpact of marketing:A re-characterization ofwomen’s fashionadvertising

Barbara J. PhillipsUniversity of Saskatchewan, Canada

Edward F. McQuarrieSanta Clara University, USA

AbstractThe prevailing view is that imagery in fashion advertising is idealized, and that repeated exposure tothe gap between ideal and real is toxic to women’s self-esteem, providing prima facie evidence forthe negative impact of the marketing system on vulnerable consumers. We challenge this view offashion ad imagery by means of content analyses and a survey supplemented by interviews. Theprevailing view is shown to be ideologically rather than empirically based, and to confuse fashionwith other quite different product categories. We conclude by discussing how fashion advertising,once cleared of this ideological debris, provides an opportunity to extend marketing theory toaccount for a broader range of consumer response across product categories. We also developthe concept of taste goods, such as fashion clothing, as a site where novel routes to persuasioncan be studied.

Keywordsbrand experience, fashion, imagery, persuasion, social impact of marketing

Introduction

Scholars across a variety of disciplines have spent decades exploring the consumption of fashion

products and their cultural and social meanings (e.g. Bannister and Hogg, 2004; Barthes, 2006;

Davis, 1992; Elliott and Davies, 2006; Entwistle, 2000; Thompson and Haytko, 1997). Yet we still

Corresponding author:

Edward F. McQuarrie, Department of Marketing, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara CA 95053

Email: [email protected]

Marketing Theory11(2) 99–126

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know very little about the fashion imagery created by marketers to convey those meanings. And

such research on fashion ad imagery as exists is both surprisingly negative and heavily constrained

in its characterizations (e.g. Lindner, 2004; McCracken, 1993; Shaw, 1995). The gist of current

thinking is that fashion imagery is one-dimensional, consisting of an unrelenting torrent of

idealized images, and that exposure to this marketing action leads to negative social comparison,

frustration, and even depression (Belk, 2001).

In this paper we challenge prevailing views of fashion ad imagery and its consequences. We

show that fashion ad imagery is both more diverse and more playful than might be expected from

prior scholarship, and explain how women exposed to it may use this imagery in rewarding and

self-affirming ways. We report content analyses to develop the diversity of fashion advertising

imagery, and to show the gulf that separates fashion imagery from the imagery used by other

beauty products marketed to women. A survey then demonstrates that women respond more

positively to fashion advertising than previously supposed.

Advertising of beauty products to women has often been a flash point for criticisms of

marketing. This re-characterization of women’s fashion serves to challenge parts of that critique.

With fashion advertising retrieved for marketing scholarship, we discuss the opportunity it pro-

vides to re-examine extant theories of how brand advertising works across diverse types of

products.

The fashion system

Fashion is a process by which the latest styles are introduced to the public through a system

that structures the reception and consumption of those styles (Entwistle, 2000). The fashion

process relies on continual, regular, and institutionalized changes in dress and adornment

(Davis, 1992), and these changes are primarily communicated through imagery. Fashion is

above all a visual phenomenon that consists of a constructed image – whether on the runway,

in a celebrity photo, as clothing worn on the street, or in the pages of a fashion magazine.

This paper examines the deliberate construction of fashion imagery for marketing purposes,

with a focus on the imagery in fashion advertising. Fashion advertising is operationally

defined as ads for fashion products that appear in high-end women’s fashion magazines such

as Vogue and Vanity Fair. Magazines such as these have been called ‘the machine that makes

Fashion’ (Barthes, 1967: 51).

The theoretical opportunity presented by this type of fashion imagery is best grasped by briefly

situating this enterprise within its temporal, social, and economic context. Since World War II,

fashion pluralism has ensured that there exists no single reigning fashion. This fashion pluralism

has a number of identified causes, including the maturing of the fashion industry, increasing use of

mass production technologies, growing consumer affluence, loosening of class boundaries, and

increasing flows of information (Davis, 1992; Entwistle, 2000). Consequently, the influence each

fashion designer or house wields over consumers’ perceptions of what is ‘fashionable’ has

decreased significantly:

Haute couture designs, therefore, now hardly function at all as the exclusive emblems for aspiring

social classes; rather, they are more like competitive, aesthetically framed market statements. Their

aim is to point at a direction or set a trend that, by succeeding in the massive, world-wide ready-to-wear

market, rebounds to the repute and wealth of the haute couture house and the corporate allies and

affiliates tied to it. (Davis, 1992: 141)

100 Marketing Theory 11(2)



Brand-name fashion is no longer the concern of the uber-rich but the domain of the global middle

class. The era is long past when fashion ads in magazines functioned primarily as trade relations,

directed to a narrow audience of retailers, opinion leaders, and cognoscenti, showing clothes

intended only for purchase by a small elite.

Today, a fashion brand must develop mass appeal by engaging large numbers of fashion-

conscious consumers. A driving concern of contemporary fashion brands is the need to sell

relatively low-priced items so as to earn profits and lure younger customers to the brand,

while still maintaining a fashionable image (Grumble, 2007). For example Ralph Lauren

prices his alligator handbags at $14,000 at his flagship store in Tokyo and his polo shirts

at $19.75 at J.C. Penney (Brodie, 2007); Vuitton offers both a $220,000 watch and a $275 pair

of sunglasses (Grumble, 2007). Thus, the imagery in high-end fashion magazines encom-

passes both exclusive and expensive designer-label goods, less expensive goods with the same

designer labels, and more affordable goods with popular fashion-brand labels (e.g. Calvin

Klein).

The increasing number of fashion brands means increasing competition for sales

(Rocamora, 2002) and greater emphasis on brand differentiation (Calefato, 2004). As

McCracken (1986) explains, this differentiation occurs for fashion goods when both the

advertising system and the fashion system work to transfer meaning from the culturally

constituted world to the brand itself. For example Prada has joined with Chinese artist Yang

Fudong to produce a black-and-white film titled ‘First Spring’ (view this film at Prada.com).

Prada then uses stills from the film in its ads in fashion magazines. In this way, Prada trans-

fers meanings associated with independent, art films (e.g. beautiful, mysterious, avant-garde)

to its brand of fashion clothing.

Unfortunately, the opportunity for a deeper understanding of how marketers use fashion ima-

gery for brand differentiation has been drowned out by the cacophony of voices criticizing fashion

imagery for its negative social impacts. As long as this social critique remains the primary

approach to understanding fashion imagery, the distinctive elements seen in fashion advertising

cannot contribute to enriching a more general theory of marketing communications.

The social impact of women’s fashion advertising

An assumption that underlies much research on fashion advertising, and that is key to the social

critique leveled against it, is that fashion ads present an aspirational message showing a model to

be emulated. That is, fashion advertising is conceived as a means for presenting an idealized image

to which women are taught to aspire. Many of these research studies focus on a model’s idealized

appearance in terms of both thinness and attractiveness (Bower, 2001; Dittmar and Howard, 2004;

Martin and Gentry, 1997; Richins, 1991; Shaw, 1995; Solomon et al., 1992) and on how women’s

roles are portrayed (Busby and Leichty, 1993; Faludi, 1991; Innes, 1999). Contrasting reviews of

the literature on appearance and role can be found in Lindner (2004) and Scott (2005). Another

strand of research has examined idealized images of success as presented through the luxury goods

and upscale settings of fashion advertising (Ferguson, 1983; McCracken, 1993; Pollay, 1986). For

example Arnold (2001: 1) notes that consumers are ‘tricked’ by the allure of the cornucopia of

wished-for objects and enviable settings found in fashion ads. In fact, for most researchers in this

tradition, the truth of the proposition that fashion ads present idealized images, impossible to attain,

is so anecdotally obvious that it requires no empirical support.

Phillips and McQuarrie 101



The animating idea within the prevailing view is collateral damage – victimization as an

unintended consequence of rational, self-interested marketing action. Put bluntly, incessant expo-

sure to super models makes an ordinary woman feel super-depressed. This contention captures the

thrust of those accounts that focus primarily on fashion and beauty products (e.g. Bower, 2001;

Dittmar and Howard, 2004; Lindner, 2004; Martin and Gentry, 1997; Shaw, 1995). Although this

view is widespread, many of its proponents are located outside of the marketing discipline. Since

the views of these scholars will not necessarily be familiar to readers of this journal, we reproduce

two prototypical examples of the kind of assertions made:

[A] portrayal of women as inferior and ‘flawed’ is a necessity for the existence of a women’s fashion

magazine such as Vogue, which is primarily a means for advertising and selling products that are

suggested to be a ‘cure’ for women’s feelings of inferiority and inappropriateness (Lindner, 2004: 420).

Within this discursive structure, to be beautiful, one must fear being non-beautiful; to be in fashion, one

must fear being out of fashion; to be self-confident, one must first feel insecure. This oppositional strat-

egy helps to assure the continued purchase of commodities; one product or even several will never

completely alleviate insecurities and the fear of being non-beautiful. (McCracken, 1993: 136)

In other, more macro accounts, the critique acquires a political cast (e.g. Arnold, 2001; Busby and

Leichty, 1993; Faludi, 1991; Ferguson, 1983; Innes, 1999; McCracken, 1993). In this more

adversarial telling, fashion and other identity products are not uniquely culpable, but simply vivid

instances used to support a more thoroughgoing social and cultural critique of the entire marketing

system. Here the theme is active oppression rather than collateral damage; the argument is that the

capitalist system of production, as implemented through mass-media advertising, is necessarily

harmful to human welfare.

In short, whether as a source of collateral damage or a tool of oppression, the means used to

promote fashion and other beauty products to women are held to have noxious effects, independent

of the professed purposes of the marketers who created the advertising. The larger context is thus

the social impact of marketing action. We think it behooves marketers to take this critique

seriously and examine it carefully, using the empirical tools we as scholars have at our disposal.

Of course, it is not possible to refute the political critique of the marketing system with a single

empirical effort, nor do we seek to absolve advertising directed toward women of any and all

negative effects. We will simply show that the prevailing view, in so far as it invokes fashion

advertising, is partial, incomplete and, in important respects, empirically false. This rebuttal serves

to undermine the specific critique of fashion advertising, which in turn provides a useful check on

the more general critique of the harmful effects on society attributed to the marketing system as a

whole. To challenge the prevailing view, we test two unexamined assumptions, as follows:

1. that fashion advertisers, indistinguishable from marketers of other beauty products, seek

positive evaluations from consumers by filling their ads with beautiful people, luxurious

goods, and lovely settings;

2. that female consumers, exposed to this barrage of extraordinarily attractive people, things, and

places, experience negative emotions which are thought to undermine their sense of self and

detract from their well-being.

We test these assumptions through (a) a series of content analyses, and (b) a survey supplemented

with illustrative interviews.




Content analyses

Contemporary fashion ad imagery in Vogue and Vanity Fair

The primary goal of the initial content analysis was to measure the proportion of ads now appearing

in fashion magazines that were consistent with, or discrepant from, the prevailing viewpoint that

fashion advertising consists primarily of idealized images, in which beautiful models are sur-

rounded by luxurious things in lovely settings. Consequently, the focus in this examination of ad

imagery was on model appearance, model behavior, and ad setting.

Sample. This analysis examined all ads one-page in size or larger, for clothing, shoes, and hand-

bag ads (hereafter, ‘fashion ads’) in twelve issues of Vogue and Vanity Fair. Ads for fashion retai-

lers such as Nordstrom and Macy’s were not coded, as these ads often contained images from many

different brands. Ads for other accessory products which might have been considered as fashion

apparel because they are worn on the person, such as eyeglasses and wristwatches, were not

included in the sample; an initial content assessment of these ads found that such ads consist almost

exclusively of a large picture of the product, with no model, setting, or accompanying objects. The

absence of a model or setting distinguished these ads from the typical fashion ad described below,

and thus justified their exclusion.

Vogue and Vanity Fair were selected to represent women’s fashion magazines in the United

States, with each having a large readership (more than 1.3 million readers per month) and imposing

substantial ad charges (more than $100,000 per page, per SRDS, 2006).1 The sample was con-

structed by alternating issues from each publication by month over a 12-month period (March 2006

to February 2007). A total of 462 contemporary fashion ads were coded as explained below.

Coding instructions. Two female coders (graduate students) independently scored each fashion ad

for any departure from the conventional formula of beautiful models, luxurious things, and

lovely surroundings. They were instructed that many of the ads they would review could be

expected to show idealized images. Idealized images were further defined as models or

exemplars to which people could be expected to aspire. In determining whether a given ad

departed from conventional beauty ideals, the coders examined: (a) model appearance (e.g.

strange hair, bizarre make-up); (b) model behavior (e.g. stabbing someone, pouring water on

clothes); and (c) setting (e.g. garbage dump, gritty urban rooftop). Intercoder agreement was

97%; any disagreements were resolved by discussion. Complete coding categories are pre-

sented in Appendix A.

Figure 1 provides an example of ads coded as idealized; Figures 2 and 3 provide examples of

ads coded as discrepant from conventional ideas of beauty and the good life. The Bottega

Veneta and Carolina Hererra ads in Figure 1 conform to the prevailing view. The models are

attractive; the clothes are beautiful; the setting (if present) focuses on accoutrements of luxury

and wealth (e.g. limousine). Ads such as these were coded as presenting an idealized picture

that could be deemed aspirational. It is important to note that beauty ideals ebb and flow over

time (Arnold, 2001; Calefato, 2004); one month redheads may be featured while the next,

blondes might have more fun. In addition, more than one type of model can be considered

idealized (Solomon et al., 1992); both the ‘girl-next-door’ and the ‘exotic beauty’ can exist in

the same fashion magazine. Coders were trained to consider all of these models as idealized;

ads were not coded as discrepant unless some element of the image was clearly non-idealized.

For example the model in the Balenciaga ad in Figure 2 was coded as discrepant; her pale face,




fly-away hair, and crazy hat, skirt, and shoes do not lead one to exclaim, ‘I want to look like

that!’ This ad was coded as discrepant and non-idealized in terms of the model, as was a Prada

ad featuring a woman with bruises, and a Jil Sander ad picturing a solemn woman with a stran-

gely unhappy face, for example.

Although the Versace ad in Figure 3 contains many idealized elements (e.g. estate architecture,

sunny garden, conventionally attractive model), the behavior aspect of this ad was coded as dis-

crepant; why would a girl want to play checkers with a panting black hound? Other discrepant

behavior included a Blumarine ad featuring two women in ballgowns with their legs roped together

as in a three-legged race, and a picture of one model angrily shouting at another in an ad for Max

Mara. The Jimmy Choo ad (Figure 3) is discrepant in terms of setting: who would want to be

sprawled in the dirty trunk of a car, alone in the desert with a man who appears to be digging a grave?

Other examples of discrepant settings include an Yves St. Laurent ad with models perched on the top

of gritty urban rooftops, a Chloe ad featuring a model sitting at a large, empty table with a rumpled

table cloth, and a Kate Spade ad where shoes are hung on a paper cut-out ski lift. These examples

serve to illustrate the discrepant and non-idealized categories in our content analysis coding.

Although one may have idiosyncratic aspirational feelings toward any one of these example

images (e.g. ‘I’d like to play that game with my dog!’), ads were not included in the discrepant

category unless both coders felt they presented a significant departure from the idealized aspira-

tional images conceived of in the prior literature. It is important to note also that non-aspirational

does not entail unpleasantness. A consumer may enjoy looking at or have positive emotions in

Figure 1. Fashion ads coded as idealized




response to a discrepant ad; but she will not aspire to the appearance, behavior, or setting shown.

Put another way, no one can be made to feel inadequate or unworthy because she lacks the expe-

rience of being thrown into a trunk and driven out to the desert, or because she has never had the

chance to play checkers with a dog.

Results. Findings are reported in terms of the percentage of ads that contained one or more dis-

crepant elements in terms of model, behavior, or setting. However, even within the clothing,

handbag, and shoe categories, there were 24 ads that contained neither model nor setting, hence,

could not be scored as discrepant according to our definition. Percentages are thus reported both for

the total sample, and for the sub-sample where discrepancy could occur. This distinction will

become more important later, when subsequent content analyses are presented.

Table 1 shows that in the most recent time period, about 29% (30%) of all women’s fashion ads in

Vogue and Vanity Fair were discrepant relative to the prevailing view. There was no significant

difference across Vogue and Vanity Fair (w2 (1)¼ 1.93, ns). The adjusted incidence of discrepancy

was roughly comparable across model appearance and model behavior (9% and 10%, respectively),

but was notably more common in the case of setting (33%). Since there were a larger number of ads

Figure 2. Fashion ad coded as discrepant from idealized convention (model)




that had no setting, as compared to those that had no model, the absolute count of discrepant settings

(95) was only about twice the count for discrepant appearance (39) or behavior (42). Nonetheless, if

both kinds of model-based discrepancy are summed, then we may say that in contemporary ads dis-

crepancy is about as likely to stem from the portrayal of the model as of the setting.

As a final check on the finding that discrepant ads were widely diffused in Vogue

and Vanity Fair, we compared the incidence of departures from the prevailing view among:

(1) brands that contributed only one or two ads to the sample for each period (about 15% of

the brands), versus (2) brands that contributed three or more ads to the sample (the median

number of appearances was six, with a maximum of 18). The former are presumably brands

with smaller market shares and lower advertising budgets. If discrepant ads were concentrated

among minor brands, these might represent a desperate bid for attention, or an attempt to

leverage limited funds by the use of some attention-getting stunt. However, there was no sig-

nificant difference in the incidence of departures from the prevailing view among the two

brand populations (w2 < 1); in fact the nominal percentage was lower among the infrequent

brands (26%), as also for the below median brands (25%). This indicates that discrepant ima-

gery is now widely diffused across brands with low and high advertising budgets for Vogue

and Vanity Fair, and cannot be dismissed as a niche strategy.

We conclude that the prevailing view, in which fashion ads directed at women consist exclu-

sively of idealized imagery of beautiful models living the good life, is not supported by the

empirical evidence.

Figure 3. Additional fashion ads coded as discrepant from idealized convention(behavior and setting)




Non-fashion ad imagery in Vogue and Vanity Fair

The contention that idealized imagery is constitutive of women’s fashion advertising provides one

benchmark for interpreting the preceding analyses; thus the current 28.6% incidence of discrepant

ads in leading fashion magazines is difficult to dismiss as a ‘rare’ or ‘infrequent’ occurrence.

However, it is possible that the prevailing view mistakes the character of advertising generally,

rather than simply being wrong about fashion advertising. It may be that all magazine ads for

adornment products aimed at women have begun to depart more and more from idealized imagery.

In that event, the prevailing view would at least be correct that there was nothing distinctive about

ads for fashion clothing.

In light of these concerns, we conducted additional content analyses to provide some context. To

begin, we re-examined the 2006–7 issues of Vogue and Vanity Fair, focusing now on the non-fashion

beauty products (e.g. cosmetics) that were advertised there. Two examples of beauty ads are provided

in Figure 4 which can be compared to the fashion ads in Figures 1, 2, and 3. Since these ads appeared

alongside the ads for fashion clothing analyzed earlier, we can reasonably assume that the marketers

responsible for these products were willing to spend the same amount of money to be exposed to the

same audience as the fashion clothing advertisers. The guiding question for this second analysis was:

Do ads for beauty products conform to the prevailing view of idealized imagery, or are large numbers

of discrepant images now found in this category of advertising as well?

Figure 4. Beauty product ads coded as idealized




Sample and Instructions. The same coders analyzed the same issues of Vogue and Vanity Fair

magazines using the same instructions as in the first analysis. Here they independently examined

all ads for cosmetics, hair care, skin care, and fragrance products (N ¼ 238). These may all be

considered packaged goods as well as beauty products, with prices one or two orders of magnitude

below those associated with fashion clothing. Intercoder agreement was 99%; any disagreements

were resolved by discussion.

Results. We found that the prevailing view does provide an accurate characterization of

advertising for non-fashion beauty products (bottom panel of Table 1). Out of 238 such ads, only

8 (3.4%) were coded as discrepant. All of these involved model appearance; there were no

instances of discrepant behavior or settings in this sample. It is important to note that although all

but one of these beauty product ads contained a model, only a minority included a setting (22%, as

compared to 62% of fashion ads). Hence, there were also fewer opportunities for discrepant

imagery in this category. Nonetheless, the overall contrast with fashion ads is stark: we found that

contemporary beauty ads did almost exclusively use conventional idealized imagery, in keeping

with the assumptions underlying the prevailing review.

In keeping with the absence of setting, follow-on inspection by the authors suggested that where

the typical fashion ad would portray the entirety of a model’s figure, often mise-en-scene, the

Table 1. Incidence of discrepant imagery in contemporary women’s fashion and beauty product advertising

N Raw Percenta Adjusted Percentb

Fashion ads (clothing, shoes, handbags)Total 462Subset containing a model or setting 438 94.8Subset containing a model 418 90.5Subset containing a setting 285 61.7Ads scored as containing discrepant imageryc 132 28.6 30.1Discrepant model appearance 39 8.4 9.3Discrepant model behavior 42 9.1 10.0Discrepant setting 95 20.6 33.3

Beauty product ads (cosmetics, shampoo, skin care, fragrance)Total 238Subset containing a model or setting 182 76.5Subset containing a model 178 74.8Subset containing a setting 53 22.3Ads scored as containing discrepant imagery 8 3.4 4.4Discrepant model appearance 8 3.4 4.5Discrepant model behavior 0Discrepant setting 0

Note. Sampled from a total of 12 issues of Vogue and Vanity Fair appearing in 2006–7.a Indicates percent of the total number of ads appearing in the respective product categories.b Indicates percent of the appropriate subset: ads with either a model or a setting for the count of discrepancy, or ads with

a model for counts of discrepant appearance or behavior, and ads with a setting for counts of discrepant settings.c An ad may have more than one source of discrepancy, hence these totals for ‘any discrepancy’ do not equal the sum of the

individual categories of discrepancy.




typical beauty product ad would give visual prominence to the body part with which the product

was concerned: hair for shampoo, mouth for lipstick, eyes for mascara, and so forth (compare the

examples in Figure 4 to those in Figures 1, 2, and 3). In conjunction with product and package

shots, as well as verbal text, this approach to ad layout often meant that in beauty product adver-

tising, no room on the page remained for portraying a setting. By contrast, fashion clothing ads, in

addition to featuring very different kinds of imagery, also had a very different layout. Body copy

and headlines were generally absent; imagery filled the entire page, allowing ample room to

include a setting, while brand name was the only verbal element that appeared.

Evolution of discrepant imagery in fashion advertising

It remains possible that discrepant imagery in fashion advertising is a relatively recent phenom-

enon, which would go some way toward explaining its neglect in prior theorizing. Conversely,

discrepant imagery may be a long-term staple of fashion ad imagery, which in turn would render its

omission from past theorizing that much more suspect. Either way, extending the content analysis

further into the past seemed likely to provide additional context for the finding that discrepant ima-

gery appears frequently in contemporary fashion advertising.

We repeated the every other month sampling procedure for issues of Vogue and Vanity Fair in

1995 and in 1986. Fashion and beauty ads were identified as before. The same coders applied the

same coding procedures to these ads from the 1995 and 1986 issues; agreement percentage was

95.6%.

Results. The incidence of discrepant imagery in fashion advertising was 14.8% (17.1%) in 1986

and 11.3% (13.3%) in 1995. As the incidence of discrepancy was similar in both periods, and just

under half the incidence seen in contemporary fashion advertising, for simplicity we combine the

two earlier periods in all subsequent analyses (see Table 2). There was again no significant dif-

ference between Vogue and Vanity Fair (w2 < 1). This initial comparison indicates that while

discrepant imagery in fashion advertising was far from rare as long as twenty years ago, it became

noticeably more common sometime after 1995.

Nonetheless, although less common in fashion advertising during prior decades, discrepant

imagery was still much more prevalent there than in beauty product ads, where it was again rare, at

2.8% (4.2%). Then as now, beauty product advertising conformed to the prevailing view, in

presenting almost exclusively idealized imagery of beautiful models behaving conventionally,

generally without use of any setting (present in only 18% of these older beauty product ads).

Examination of the individual categories of discrepant imagery in fashion ads more specifically

locates the change over time to a combination of more ads containing a setting (only 39.5%contained a setting in the earlier period), and a greater probability that if a setting is present, it will

be portrayed in a non-idealized and discrepant manner (only 18.1% of settings were discrepant in

the earlier period). While the presence of a setting is a key characteristic that distinguishes contem-

porary fashion ads from other beauty ads, the historical data suggests that this factor is itself

dynamic. Although fashion advertising was distinct even twenty years ago, it has become yet more

differentiated from beauty product advertising in more recent times, both in the inclusion of a set-

ting, and in how that setting is portrayed.

We conclude that discrepant imagery has frequently appeared in women’s fashion ads for at

least the past twenty years, but appears to have become notably more common sometime after

1995. No similar increase is seen in the case of beauty ads; discrepant imagery was and remains




rare in ads for ordinary beauty products. The historical data thus supports the initial conclusion that

fashion ads are constructed differently from beauty ads so that they represent a separate category or

type of advertising, deserving of separate theoretical treatment. The social critique, centered on the

idea of an onslaught of idealized imagery, appears to be a better fit to beauty product advertising. It

does not provide a particularly accurate description of ads for fashion clothing.

Contemporary fashion advertising for men

A possible counterargument to the reasoning presented thus far is that what we have termed

‘discrepant’ imagery is better described as misogynistic imagery, and thus just another kind of

assault on the dignity of the female person. If so, this would restore the relevance of the social

critique to fashion advertising: misogynistic imagery would become an alternative to impossibly

idealized imagery, a very different form of depiction that nonetheless would have the same

belittling effect.

A straightforward refutation of the charge that discrepant, non-idealized imagery in women’s

fashion advertising is really only misogynistic imagery would be to show that discrepant imagery

is also common in fashion advertising appearing in men’s magazines. There is after all not much of

a literature on how advertising portrayals ‘oppress’ men (although see Gulas and McKeage, 2000;

Johnson et al., 2007). If men’s fashion advertising is like women’s fashion advertising and unlike

women’s beauty product advertising in containing discrepant, non-idealized imagery, then such

Table 2. Incidence of discrepant imagery in women’s fashion advertising from 1995 and 1986


Fashion ads (clothing, shoes, handbags)Total 1481Subset containing a model or setting 1271 85.8Subset containing a model 1216 82.1Subset containing a setting 585 39.5Ads scored as containing discrepant imagery 197 13.3 15.5Discrepant model appearance 70 4.7 5.8Discrepant model behavior 80 5.4 6.6Discrepant setting 106 7.2 18.1

Beauty product ads (cosmetics, shampoo, skin care, fragrance)Total 528Subset containing a model or setting 355 67.2Subset containing a model 330 62.5Subset containing a setting 95 18.0Ads scored as containing discrepant imagery 15 2.8 4.2Discrepant model appearance 11 2.1 3.3Discrepant model behavior 2 0.4 0.6Discrepant setting 3 0.6 3.2

Note. Sampled from a total of 12 issues of Vogue and Vanity Fair appearing in 1995 and an additional 12 issues appearing in

1986.a Indicates percent of the total number of ads appearing.b Indicates percent of the appropriate subset: ads with either a model or a setting for the count of discrepancy, or ads with a

model for counts of discrepant appearance or behavior, and ads with a setting for counts of discrepant settings.




imagery, when it appears in women’s fashion advertising, cannot be used to support the social cri-

tique that advertising imagery belittles women in particular.

Sample and Coding Instructions. Esquire and GQ were identified as magazines that play the same

role in men’s fashion as Vogue and Vanity Fair do in women’s fashion. Esquire and GQ are the two

men’s fashion magazines in the United States with the largest circulation (more than 700,000

readers per month) and highest ad costs (more than $85,000 per page, per SRDS, 2006).

The same magazine issue sampling strategy as before was applied: every other issue was

examined over 12 month periods in 2006–7, and again in 1996 and 1985. A total of 338 con-

temporary ads and 630 older ads were examined (Table 3). The same coders followed the same

instructions as to conventional portrayals of attractive models and settings, although, since the

coders were female, it has to be acknowledged that in this case there was an imaginative or third

person component: do you think the young men that you know would want to look like this or live

this way? Intercoder agreement was 95%; any disagreements were resolved by discussion.

Results. The incidence of discrepant fashion ads aimed at men broadly parallels that seen for

women, running about 1 in 5 in the most recent period, versus better than 1 in 4 for women. Over

the entire period (all three time points), the incidence of discrepant imagery in men’s fashion

(16.4%) is almost the same as that in women’s fashion advertising (16.9%). As was the case with

women’s fashion, discrepant imagery is more common in contemporary men’s fashion ads as

opposed to earlier ads.

Table 3. Incidence of discrepant imagery in past and present men’s fashion advertising


Contemporary ads (2006–7)Total 338Subset containing a model or setting 286 84.6Subset containing a model 267 79.0Subset containing a setting 170 50.3Ads scored as containing discrepant imagery 67 19.8 23.4Discrepant model appearance 29 8.6 10.9Discrepant model behavior 35 10.4 13.1Discrepant setting 40 11.8 23.5

Past ads (1995 & 1986)Total 630Subset containing a model or setting 508 80.6Subset containing a model 495 78.6Subset containing a setting 182 28.9Ads scored as containing discrepant imagery 92 14.6 18.1Discrepant model appearance 34 5.4 6.9Discrepant model behavior 43 6.8 8.7Discrepant setting 39 6.2 21.4

Note. Sampled from a total of 12 issues of Vogue and Vanity Fair appearing in 2006–7, and 1995, and 1986.a Indicates percent of the total number of ads appearing.b Indicates percent of the appropriate subset: ads with either a model or a setting for the count of discrepancy, or ads with

a model for counts of discrepant appearance or behavior, and ads with a setting for counts of discrepant settings.




We conclude that while women’s fashion advertising differs from women’s beauty product

advertising in containing many more instances of discrepant imagery, women’s fashion advertising

does not differ from men’s fashion advertising on this score. Hence, discrepant imagery cannot

support a social critique uniquely focused on women. This conclusion is bolstered by inspection;

the authors found many discrepant images in women’s fashion ads that cannot be described as

misogynistic, such as the Balenciaga ad in Figure 2 and the Versace ad in Figure 3. There were

many others; for example another ad in the Jimmy Choo campaign shows a dead man floating in a

pool, while a powerful woman ignores him to retrieve a purse.

Summary

Fashion advertising differs from advertising for other kinds of beauty products directed at women

specifically. Fashion clothing advertising does not conform to the prevailing view that it contains

exclusively idealized imagery of beautiful models, luxurious accoutrements, and lovely settings. In

addition to containing different sorts of imagery, fashion ads are also distinguished by the typical

absence of headlines, taglines and body copy, and by a tendency to place the model in a setting.

Fashion advertising appears to be distinctive and should not be lumped together with beauty

product advertising.

Having successfully challenged the first unexamined assumption of the prior literature –

showing that more than one-quarter of the time, fashion advertisers do not fill their ads with beau-

tiful models, luxurious goods, and lovely settings – we suggest that the rationale behind the diverse

imagery found in fashion ads is as yet unknown. Therefore, we next consider whether the conse-

quences for consumers of exposure to fashion advertising might also be different than charged.

Consumer response to fashion magazine advertising

Participants and procedure

To examine women’s responses to fashion ad imagery, a survey was administered to a convenience

sample of 130 women enrolled in communications courses at a large public university, who

received course credit. We compared self-reported behaviors toward fashion clothing ads with self-

reported behaviors toward beauty ads. After initial questions concerning magazine readership, par-

ticipants were presented with five color reproductions of fashion ads and five color reproductions

of beauty ads and asked to answer questions about ads ‘such as these examples.’2 Use of multiple

ads was intended to direct participant attention toward the category from which each ad was drawn,

as opposed to the specific executional features of any individual ad. Thus, the survey was not

designed to be an experimental treatment in which specific ad features are manipulated in an

attempt to cause specific audience responses. Rather, the survey was designed to tap top-of-

mind perceptions and experiences associated with ads for different categories of products. Based

on the findings of the content analysis, the fashion examples set included both idealized and dis-

crepant ads, while the beauty example set contained only idealized ads.

To add insight to the quantitative survey results, three women were recruited using a snowball

technique to participate in in-depth interviews. Although the use of only three respondents did not

result in data saturation, these interviews added depth and spontaneity to the survey responses. In

addition, they allowed a check on the use of a student sample of communications students, as the

three women interviewed ranged in age from 24 to 29, had all completed undergraduate degrees,

and were all working in non-fashion-related occupations. Each was recommended as ‘someone




who likes fashion’ and none were known to the researchers. All were Caucasian. All read fashion

magazines regularly and scored 50 or above on a scale of fashion-consciousness with a range of 0

to 80 possible points (Gould and Stern, 1989). The interviews covered the same topics as the sur-

vey measures described below, but allowed answers to be probed in depth. Interviews lasted

approximately 60 minutes and informants received $20 for participating. All informant names

have been changed to protect their privacy. Findings from both the survey and the interviews were

similar. Consequently, in the results section, the numerical survey findings are presented first, fol-

lowed by illustrative quotes from the depth interviews.

Survey measures

Participants were given a list of ten women’s magazines (five fashion and five non-fashion) and asked

to check which they had read within the past six months. Next, the fashion magazines were listed and

participants indicated which one they had read most, and then answered subsequent readership

questions with that magazine as the focus. This procedure was later repeated for the general interest

magazines. Subsequent questions asked participants about the particular manner in which they

approached clothing and beauty ads, and their emotional reactions to fashion clothing and then to

beauty product ads. Emotional reactions to each category of ads were measured following exposure to

the five examples of that category. For this purpose, the positive (33-item) and negative (21-item)

‘affective responses to ad’ scales in Bruner II et al. (2001) were administered using a three-point scale

labeled ‘never/sometimes/often experience this emotion in response to ads of this kind’ (see Table 4 for

a list). Responses were then dichotomized to distinguish ‘often’ from ‘sometimes’ and ‘never’.

Inspection indicated that use of this steeper hurdle (‘often’ experience the emotion) produced sharper

contrasts, perhaps because ‘sometimes’ was treated by some respondents as the equivalent of ‘not

sure’. The sum of the positive items (a¼.90) and negative items (a¼.84) was calculated.

Moderators

After they completed the reading and emotion measures, participants completed a 20-item scale

designed to capture fashion consciousness. The twenty items were taken from Gould and Stern’s

fashion consciousness scale (1989), as presented in Appendix B. Although Gould and Stern divide

these twenty items into three factors measuring different aspects of fashion consciousness, to

obtain a measure of overall or general fashion consciousness, we used the mean of the twenty items

(a¼.91). For the MANOVA reported below, the sample was split at the median to distinguish par-

ticipants whose involvement with fashion was relatively high or low.

Results: Engagement

Survey results indicate that women are more willing to engage fashion ads as opposed to beauty

ads. Participants indicated they were much more likely to ‘ignore’ beauty ads (41%) than clothing

ads (7%). In addition, participants stated that they were more likely to ‘look at many’ clothing ads

in fashion magazines (54%) as opposed to beauty ads (22%). Participants also were much more

likely to say that they probably or definitely would look ‘closely’ at fashion clothing ads (50%)

than beauty ads (17.5%).

The interview participants elaborated on how and why they read fashion magazines:

Andrea: I guess it’s a kind of breather for me. It’s kind of a relaxation from day and my really stressful

work.




Sydney: I’m on airplanes a lot. And because of that, I read a lot of those [fashion magazines], like

Vogue. I like to read Vogue because it’s really thick and it will get me through a three-hour flight.

Table 4. Positive and negative emotions associated with exposure to fashion versus beauty productadvertising

Positive emotions Fashion % Beauty % Negative emotions Fashion % Beauty %

creative 46.2 4.6 disinterested 6.9 22.3amused 46.2 13.1 bored 4.6 16.9inspired 47.7 14.6 dull 0.8 7.7interested 42.3 16.2 suspicious 9.2 11.5stimulated 24.6 5.4 skeptical 18.5 19.2happy 23.1 4.6 angry 1.5 1.5attractive 30.0 15.4 sad 2.3 1.5excited 20.0 5.4 regretful 2.3 0.8humorous 19.2 5.4 bad 3.8 2.3good 20.8 7.7 fed-up 7.7 6.2confident 23.8 10.8 annoyed 8.5 6.9cheerful 16.9 4.6 lonely 3.1 0.8enthusiastic 16.2 4.6 offended 3.8 1.5joyous 10.8 0 repulsed 5.4 3.1delighted 13.8 3.1 irritated 6.2 3.8independent 20.8 11.5 depressed 3.8 0.8pleased 13.1 3.8 dubious 4.6 1.5alive 15.4 6.9 defiant 7.7 3.8attentive 17.7 9.2 insulted 6.9 2.3strong 12.3 4.6 disgusted 8.5 3.8lively 13.1 5.4 critical 52.3 27.7playful 11.5 4.6energetic 13.1 6.2exhilarated 8.5 2.3adventurous 13.8 7.7carefree 12.3 6.9silly 8.5 3.1lighthearted 9.2 3.8industrious 7.7 3.8satisfied 4.6 2.3active 3.8 3.8proud 3.8 3.8soothed 3.1 3.1elated 1.5 2.3

Note. Each column is sorted by the size of the gap between the incidence of the emotion for fashion vs beauty product ads.

See also Table 5. Adjectives are from Bruner II et al. (2001).

Although a significance test repeated 55 times would be dubious, for two samples of 130, at an expected incidence around

20%, a gap of ten percentage points would yield a chi-square value significant at .05, while at an expected incidence of 10%, a

gap of eight percentage points would yield a chi-square value significant at .05. These approximate benchmarks can be used

to interpret results for individual emotions of interest.




It appears that fashion magazines provide a distinct set of uses and gratifications, relative to

more general magazines, and this in turn may explain why fashion ads look different from the

beauty product ads that dominate general magazines.

Results: Emotion

Compared to beauty product ads, fashion clothing ads were much more likely to elicit positive

emotions. This is important since the prevailing view makes much of the depression and despair

caused by a mismatch between the actual and ideal self, and tars both fashion and beauty ads with

that same brush. Instead, our survey participants indicated that, while reading fashion clothing ads,

they were notably more likely to feel creative, interested, inspired, or stimulated; amused, cheerful,

or happy; and confident or enthusiastic, among others (Table 4). For the most part, the incidence of

negative emotions did not differ across the two categories. The exceptions were terms suggestive

of lack of engagement (e.g. ‘disinterested’ and ‘bored’ were more commonly reported for beauty

products), or conversely, high levels of engagement (the one negative emotion experienced sig-

nificantly more often in response to fashion advertising was ‘critical’).

Likewise, during the interviews, the informants expressed a surprising degree of excitement and

engagement while examining fashion ads. For example when viewing the Balenciaga ad in Figure

2, the informants responded:

Andrea: This is fun! You can tell, she’s having fun. Her big, bull-red skirt, I think, communicates very

unique personal style. Like this is who this girl is. Big bull things, different stunts, not your normal.

Reba: Oh, that’s fun! It seems more like art to me. I mean, this is something that I would never, ever, ever,

ever, ever wear. But she reminds me of Strawberry Shortcake, which I love. It’s like Strawberry Shortcake

goes Goth. It, sort of, makes you feel happy. And I’ve often felt like, if I could start life over, I’d be a much

more funky, fun, crazy dresser. I think it takes ads like this to kind of push you forward and remind you to be

fashionable and fun.

The informants shed light on the texture of the positive emotions that may follow from close

attention to fashion ads, as this ad elicited both a happy mood and the feeling of being inspired to

try something new. Note also that Reba has no intention of adopting the particular product fashion

of dress advertised, but does consume and derive gratification from the ad itself. As argued later,

she gains a positive experience of the brand (Brakus et al., 2009), even though she does not idealize

the appearance of this particular model.

A 2 x 2 x 2 MANOVA was applied to the summed emotion scales (product category by

emotional valence by fashion involvement). It showed the excess of positive over negative

emotions was greater for the fashion ads as compared to the beauty ads, as attested by a significant

two way interaction (F (1, 128) ¼ 49.5, p <.001).

The positive emotional response to fashion ads was dramatically heightened for the participants

who were more highly involved in fashion, as seen by the significant three-way interaction

(F (1, 128)¼ 21.6, p <.001; means graphed in Figure 5); but it is important to note that this emotional

advantage holds even when the involvement level of participants is not distinguished, as shown by the

significant two way interaction mentioned earlier. Thus, even the low involvement group was twice as

likely to often experience positive as negative emotions in response to fashion ads. Conversely, much

of the interaction is driven by the high frequency with which those highly involved with fashion ads

experience positive emotions, relative to any other cell in the design (Table 5).




This positive emotional response to fashion ads could be occurring because consumers are less

interested in learning the product information contained in fashion ads than in satisfying other

motives. Compared to beauty ads, survey participants were much more likely to enjoy fashion ads

as art (47% versus 5%). They were much less likely to think about the product at all (only 21% for

fashion ads versus 75% for personal care ads). This is another way of saying that in many cases

Below Median Fashion Involvement Above Median Fashion Involvement

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

positivenegative positivenegative

# E

mot

ion

s

Fashion

Beauty Products

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

# E

mot

ion

s

Fashion

BeautyProducts

Figure 5. incidence of emotional response to fashion and beauty product ads by level of involvementNote. Emotions were scored dichotomously, so the vertical axis represents an average count. Since therewere 34 positive items and 21 negative items, it was expected that all lines in these graphs would slope upwardand to the right. For the beauty ads, the ratio of positive to negative emotions matches expectations (about1.6 to 1.0) in the high fashion involvement group, but falls below expectations in the low involvement group.The ratio for fashion ads exceeds expectation in both groups. Hence, the judgment in-text that emotionswere mixed for beauty ads, but skewed positive for fashion ads.

Table 5. Emotional response to fashion ads compared to beauty product ads

Fashion clothing Beauty productsa

Mean SD N Mean SD N

Positive EmotionsHighly involved with fashion and appearanceb 8.11*yz 7.08 64 2.63* 4.01 64Low involvement with fashion and appearance 3.86*yz 4.58 66 1.61* 3.34 66

Negative EmotionsHighly involved with fashion and appearanceb 1.39z 2.45 64 1.58 2.76 64Low involvement with fashion and appearance 1.97*z 2.61 66 1.35* 2.16 66

Note. See Table 4 for a list of the positive and negative emotions; data are from a survey of 130 female Communications

students. Emotion incidence was dichotomized with ‘often’ coded as ‘1’ and ‘never’ or ‘sometimes’ coded as zero. Hence,

means indicate the frequency with which positive or negative emotions were often experienced in response to particular

types of advertising. See Figure 5 for a graph of these means.

* Row-wise, within type of emotion, means with this superscript differ at p <.05.y Column-wise, within type of emotion, means marked with this superscript differ at p <.05.z Column-wise, across type of emotion, within involvement level, means marked with this superscript differ at p <.05.a The more neutral phrase ‘personal care products’ was used in the survey itself.b Based on a median split with respect to scores on the Gould and Stern (1989) scale of fashion consciousness.




fashion clothing advertising appears to serve as a consumption good in its own right. Unlike ads for

beauty products, fashion ads are not necessarily approached as a means to the end of product purchase.

The interview informants elaborated on reasons other than product information for viewing

fashion ads:

Andrea: There is just a sense of inspiration and energy in looking at them [the ads] and looking at the

magazines that I really . . . I just enjoy knowing what’s going on.

Sydney: Why do I pick that [Vogue]? I guess it’s fun for me. I guess there’s a certain art in fashion to me that

I really appreciate . . . and to be honest, Vogue is a lot easier to read than, like, reading an art magazine.

These findings indicate that fashion ads, as opposed to beauty ads, do not necessarily impose a

jarring clash between self and ideal, but instead may be used by consumers to make their own

meanings and further their own goals (Hirschman and Thompson, 1997; O’Donohoe, 1994).

Discussion

The survey and the interviews showed that beauty ads featuring beautiful women with fabulous

eyes, hair, and skin elicit disinterest from women: women claim to ignore and resist these ads, to

spend little time with them. And, women report decidedly mixed emotions in response to such ads.

Hence, it seems likely that the prevailing view that women experience negative self-comparison

from idealized imagery may well generalize to contemporary beauty product advertising. How-

ever, in the survey we found that fashion ads receive a very different response. Women engage

with fashion ads, reading them closely to achieve their own goals. Participants report experiencing

a range of different positive emotions in response to fashion ads, feeling by turn creative, stimu-

lated, or inspired. The difference holds even among young women who are less involved in fash-

ion. The second unexamined assumption behind the prevailing view – that female consumers of

fashion advertising are driven to negative emotions that may undermine their sense of self to the

detriment of their well-being – is not supported by the survey results. This is not to say that expo-

sure to fashion advertising can never lead to negative judgments about the self and unhappy feel-

ings; however, such negative outcomes were much less common in our findings than supposed by

previous theory. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed next.

Ideological versus empirical approaches to fashion ads

Had this study examined ads for a high involvement good placed in an enthusiast magazine

directed at a male audience – sports cars in Car and Driver, say – the uses and gratifications we

found, and the contrasting response to ads for a low involvement good – batteries, say – then its

findings would be old news indeed (on involvement, see Rossiter et al. [1991]). It is only in the

case of social identity products aimed at women that the distinction between high involvement and

low involvement goods – fashion clothing versus shampoo – gets denied (Shavitt et al., 1992).

Why should a comparably involving product category and a comparable enthusiast magazine

aimed at women be viewed so differently? To ask the question in this way is to deconstruct the

ideological substrate of the prevailing view, to use Stern’s (1996; 2000) terminology. Gender

substitution exposes the tacit assumptions about women’s role in society that are at its core.

Continuing in this vein, the key difference between beauty product ads and sports car ads would

not be that one is directed at women and the other at men, but that one product category is intended

to solve a problem (Fennell, 1978), while the other provides opportunities for hedonic self




expression (Chitturi et al., 2008; Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982). Building on Fennell (1978), Rossiter

et al. (1991) distinguish low involvement informational products where a problem must be solved so

that the motivation is negative, from high involvement transformational products where some pleasure

is sought and the motivation is positive. In this scheme, sports car ads for men and fashion clothing ads

for women don’t need to make problems salient; hence, they are less likely to trigger negative thoughts

and feelings. Sports cars don’t usually solve transportation problems; they are for fun. Likewise,

fashion ads don’t usually make women feel bad about themselves; they are for fun.

The above gender substitution suggests that even ads for beauty products directed toward

women cannot be judged uniquely oppressive and do not reflect a harmful impact of the marketing

system on the more vulnerable gender. All that we see is a gender-indifferent priming effect in

which the implicit reference to the problem to be solved (e.g. your flat, scraggly hair for women

or your growing bald spot for men) makes salient pre-existing feelings of concern for that problem.

We may regret how many consumers devote some portion of their existence to worries about their

thinning hair, oily skin, and so forth, due to the prevalence of problem-solution advertising in con-

sumer goods categories. However, such a gender-neutral outcome in a separate product category

cannot be used to indict the fashion system for its harmful effects on women’s well-being.

Scholarly dismissals of fashion advertising

Having stripped away the ideological detritus masking the reality of women’s fashion advertising,

we turn next to a different sort of misunderstanding: the scholarly refusal to accept fashion

advertising as a challenge to extant theory of how advertising works. Unfortunately, just as

ideologically-based social critiques have obscured understanding of what fashion advertising is,

prior scholarly critiques in advertising and marketing have obscured understanding of what fashion

advertising does. One kind of scholarly dismissal rejects the meaningfulness of the kind of discre-

pant imagery that distinguishes fashion advertising; a second kind of dismissal refuses to acknowl-

edge the factors that distinguish fashion advertising. We take up each dismissal in turn.

Some scholars suggest that the use of odd, discrepant imagery in fashion ads is a way for

marketers to elicit attention in a magazine filled with fashion images. Researchers who have

studied violent imagery in fashion ads (Andersson et al., 2004; Vezina and Paul, 1997) state that

these ads are meant to provoke or shock the audience and have no further meaning. Goldman

(1992) extends this attention explanation beyond shocking ads and suggests that unusual fashion

images are nothing more than a sign of pure aestheticism. For him, the sole aim of discrepant

fashion ads is to attract attention by creating ‘obtuse semiotic riddles that have no answer.’ The

point is for the reader to identify herself as a member of a sophisticated group. If this is the case,

then even devoted readers of fashion magazines will find no coherent message, beyond ‘this is a

fashion ad,’ within the ad images. Under this view, Versace does not contribute to its brand equity

by showing a girl playing checkers with a dog; it just gets attention.

It is difficult to reconcile the idea that fashion images are meaningless foci of attention with the

practical perspective that these images are a key means by which marketing managers build the

identity and equity of their fashion brands (Arnold, 2001). The attention explanation is also under-

specified. Sports car advertisers in Car and Driver face much the same profusion of competitor

imagery as fashion clothing advertisers in Vogue. So why are not sports car advertisers notorious

for using the same sort of obtuse semiotic riddles in a quest for attention?

The second kind of dismissal can be seen in Rossiter et al. (1991), who deny that there is

anything distinctive about fashion clothing advertising, simply listing it as a prominent instance of




high involvement transformational advertising, along with cars (see their Figure 2). But fashion

clothing advertising, whether for men or women, is not like car advertising. Fashion advertising

typically lacks words, and often includes discrepant imagery; these properties are not characteristic

of other high involvement transformational goods. Likewise, the specific tactical recommendations

given by Rossiter et al. for high involvement transformational ads do not envision the exclusion of

text or the use of discrepant imagery. In fact, the only recommendation that seems pertinent to

discrepant imagery – ‘The execution of the emotion must be unique to the brand’ – applies to a

completely different quadrant: low involvement transformational (Rossiter et al., 1991: 18). In

sum, while the idea of a low-involvement informational purchase usefully captures something

important about beauty products, the idea of a high involvement transformational purchase does

not help to understand fashion clothing advertising, beyond acknowledging that it must be differ-

ent from that for the typical beauty product, understood as a low-priced packaged good that solves

some problem.

Deconstruction via gender substitution reveals the theoretical vacuity of scholarly dismissals of

fashion advertising, just as it had uncovered the empirical vacuity of ideological dismissals.

Fashion advertising isn’t easily assimilated into existing categorization schemes for different sorts

of goods. It is time that marketing scholars took back fashion advertising, by taking it seriously as a

challenge to current accounts of how advertising works. It is time to ask: what if fashion ads

contain discrepant imagery and eschew verbal claims, not by accident or in ignorance, but

deliberately, as the best available approach to fulfilling the goals of brand advertising in this

particular kind of product category? We conclude the paper by sketching out some directions for

how future research might proceed, were marketing scholars to acknowledge the opportunity for

theoretical innovation posed by fashion advertising.

Future research

The path future work might take can be laid out in terms of both theoretical and empirical lines of

inquiry. The task of future theorizing is to explain why fashion ads sometimes use discrepant

imagery and virtually always eschew verbal claims. Extant marketing theory cannot readily

explain why it’s a good use of a brand’s funds to show a consumer playing checkers with a panting

hound, or sprawled in the trunk of a car watching her grave being dug (Vakratsas and Ambler,

1999). And no extant theory specifies the conditions under which an entire category of brands is

better off eschewing verbal claims altogether in its advertising. All other categories of magazine

advertising of equal economic significance rely on text as part of their ads; why don’t fashion ads?

A possible answer is sketched next.

Theoretical opportunity: Taste goods

In addition to grid models such as Rossiter et al. (1991), marketing scholarship has long been

familiar with other fundamental distinctions for differentiating product categories. Thus, Nelson

(1970) distinguished between search goods, where quality can be ascertained in advance of pur-

chase, and experience goods, where quality is only ascertainable after purchase (Huang et al.,

2009). One possible explanation for the distinctiveness of fashion advertising is that fashion

clothing may represent a third fundamental category of good, unanticipated in current thinking,

which we will term ‘taste goods’. The two fundamental features of taste goods are:




1) There are no objective measures of product quality, so that preference is a matter of subjective

taste;

2) It is possible to gain an experience of the product in advance of purchase.

As can be seen, taste goods upend the Nelson (1970) categories.3 That is why they represent an

opportunity for theoretical innovation in marketing.

Generally speaking, any product where the aesthetic component is primary may represent

a taste good. Thus Architectural Digest is a publication where, like Vogue, one can find many ads

that contain no verbal claims. The category ‘taste good’ encompasses products where style or

design elements play a major role in differentiating one offering from another, and where that

differentiation is subjective, with the exact same offering being pleasing and displeasing to two

otherwise interchangeable consumers. That is, taste is subjective and not readily predictable from

measurable audience characteristics. In a taste good category, a brand has to put its stylistic sig-

nature out where prospective purchasers can gain an experience of it, and decide if that brand style

is ‘for me’ or not.

Although taste goods need not be visual phenomena, taste goods that are heavily advertised in

magazines typically will be visual. To the extent that consumer preference for a taste good rep-

resents a matter of visual taste, nothing pertinent or meaningful about the brand can be stated in a

verbal claim. Preference is subjective; the consumer knows what she prefers only when she sees it,

so that words can only interfere with the attempt to show her the brand. Hence, the role of

magazine advertising for a taste good is to give the consumer a vicarious experience that is

pleasing and satisfying in its own right (i.e. is consumed for its own sake), while serving as a free

sample of the brand’s distinctive offering. What is searched is the experiences on offer by the brand

(Brakus et al., 2009).

The argument from the characteristics of taste goods explains the absence of words in fashion

advertising, but does not yet explain why Vogue ads do not look like the pages of a Land’s End cat-

alogue, with the product shown front and center, in a good light, so that it can be visually inspected.

Perhaps the reason is that brands of fashion clothing can’t be differentiated in terms of functional

benefits from one another; the ad visuals cannot rest on functional differentiation because this is absent.

That is why Vogue ads do not look like catalog pages. Vogue ads are meant to be experienced, not

inspected (Brakus et al., 2009). The preference for experience over product depiction was evident in

the survey results discussed earlier, and articulated by our interview informants:

Sydney: I don’t spend any real time on the ones that are . . . just a handbag and that’s it. It’s a

nice bag, but I won’t spend any time.

Andrea: I guess I look for ads that aren’t really product-specific, because those aren’t as fun to

me. They have so many other sections of the magazine where you can get product information. But

I really like knowing I can look at [the ad] and think, ‘Gosh, that’s what it is, exactly what this

[brand] stands for.’

Reba: I’m more interested in seeing what art is produced rather than what this advertising firm is

trying to sell me, you know.

Versace, Jimmy Choo, and the like aren’t trying to ‘get attention’; these brands are seeking to

differentiate themselves from other fashion brands. Discrepant ad imagery may be intended to

provide consumers with a different experience and to associate that distinctive experience with the

brand sponsor (Brakus et al., 2009). To paraphrase Tolstoy’s famous quote: every image of a pretty

model ensconced in luxury is experienced in the same way; but every discrepant image is expe-

rienced in its own distinctive way.




It is of course not possible to speak of taste and consumer goods without some reference to the

work of the French sociologist Bourdieu (1984) and its contemporary reconstruction by Holt

(1998). Bourdieu’s concern was with how consumption practices could be used to establish and

maintain social distinction. Holt showed that the phenomenon was not specific to upper-income

French society and fine art, but generalized to other social classes and other kinds of goods. The

idea in each case is that selection of the right kind of consumer goods both requires an investment

of, and provides a return on, cultural capital, which is then deployed to distinguish oneself within a

social circle as one of the better sort.

The shortcoming of Bourdieu’s idea within the present context is that it provides no insight into

branded competition within the product category. Of course, a fashion-minded woman reads Vogue

in part to display and acquire cultural capital; and it is trivially true that the expensive and exclu-

sive fashion clothing advertised in Vogue can serve the goal of distinguishing a woman socially as

among the better (more fashionable) sort. But there are many dozens of fashion brands that adver-

tise in Vogue in an attempt to promise social distinction. The question is, How do these brands go

about competing with one another? Bourdieu and Holt are silent on this score.

This limitation applies more broadly to the sociological and anthropological strand within

Consumer Culture Theory (Arnould and Thompson, 2005). A CCT perspective has no difficulty

teasing out the multiple ways in which a consumer might re-purpose the brand imagery in Figures

1, 2, and 3, and can deliver a theoretically nuanced account of how a consumer may come to iden-

tify with a model portrayed in one fashion ad but not the model appearing in another. But the proj-

ects of brands are invisible within CCT – only the life projects of consumers appear (e.g. Mick and

Buhl, 1992; Ritson and Elliott, 1999). There is little explanation of what brands do in an attempt to

gain advantage over one another.

We intend the category of taste goods to mark out a territory in which new forms of brand

competition can be studied. The task for future research is to examine how brands compete when

neither search nor experience allows a determination of quality or performance, even as many

brands provide a superficially equivalent avenue for gaining cultural capital, demonstrating social

superiority, and signaling an aspirational identity. Preliminary indications from the present study

are that some brands in taste good categories will attempt to differentiate themselves by means of

their advertising imagery, more particularly by departing from the conventional idealized formula,

and not simply depicting a pretty model enjoying a glamorous life of luxury. In marking out

advertising in this category, we follow those scholars who also focus on the ‘how’ of advertising

imagery, and on the brand outcomes of distinctive stylistic choices (e.g. Pracejus et al., 2006;

Schroeder, 2002; Scott, 1994).

Future empirical research

In empirical terms, the follow-up to the content analyses and survey reported here might pursue

either of two separate paths. First, there is the opportunity to conduct a much more intensive inter-

view study. With the grip of the social critique loosened, so that the distinctiveness of fashion

advertising emerges, it would be useful to interview fashion consumers using a phenomenological

or other in-depth approach, while focusing on what the consumer does with the ad imagery besides

negotiate identity (cf. Phillips and McQuarrie, 2010 and Thompson and Haytko, 1997). The par-

ticular advantage of excluding verbal content from fashion advertising remains to be delineated;

likewise, the exact uses and gratifications associated with various kinds of discrepant imagery are,

as yet, little understood.




Second, there are opportunities to pursue an experimental direction. One possibility would be to

replicate selected experiments in Richins (1991) using a four-fold design, in which beauty product

ads versus fashion ads provide one treatment, while the use of male versus female products and par-

ticipants provides the other. This replication is important because our study of response is limited to

self-report, and it is possible that a more sophisticated experimental procedure might reveal covert

negative responses co-existing with professed positive responses. Conversely, if the negative

self-comparisons documented by Richins do not occur in response to discrepant fashion ads,

then this would complete the liberation of fashion advertising from the social criticism con-

tested here. Moreover, suppose male participants (individuals with thinning hair, for instance),

when shown male-oriented ‘beauty’ products (e.g. baldness remedies), engage in the same sort

of negative self-comparisons as Richins (1991) has already shown for female participants shown

beauty products. In that event, the ideologically based critique of women’s victimization would

be transmogrified into a critique of the baleful effect, on human beings, of the problem–solution

format when used to advertise personal care products. It would no longer have anything to do

with women’s fashion.

Finally, now that the incidence of discrepant imagery in at least one product category has

been established, experimental work, guided by the interviews described above, can turn to identi-

fying its impact and tracing the process whereby it achieves its effect. The challenge is to conceptualize

why practitioners in a taste good category often choose imagery that, on the face of it, is negative. In

conventional marketing theory, brands strive to fill their advertising with positive imagery in the hope

that positive associations will transfer to the brand. This is part of the problem with applying the

Rossiter et al. (1991) grid to fashion clothing – their theory offers no explanation for why a

particular kind of ‘high involvement transformational’ product, purchased from a positive motivation,

should make extensive use of negative imagery. Negativity, which is characteristic of much of

the discrepant imagery identified in the content analysis, must have some purpose other than loading

down the brand with negative associations. The empirical question is: what positive outcome does it

produce for the brands that use it? One possible answer is sketched out in Phillips and McQuarrie

(2010).

We can be confident that the choice of ad execution represents practitioners’ best judgment as to

the optimal deployment of available ad dollars. As scholars, we do well to question theory before

rejecting the empirical evidence of how practitioners have chosen to spend their money; the more

so when, as the content analysis shows, practitioners have moved over time to do more of what

theory declares to be the ‘wrong’ thing. We see a taste good category where ads themselves are

willingly consumed for their own sake, and where discrepant, ‘negative’ images commonly appear.

It is incumbent on scholars to understand why.

Some comments in response to discrepant images, made in the supplemental interviews, point to

possible explanations: ‘I like the different advertising where there’s a piece that’s really sticking

out,’ and ‘really interesting. This is the kind of fashion advertising that I like . . . the ones that are

kind of off-the-wall.’ Now compare these next responses, recorded after exposure to more con-

ventional, idealized imagery: ‘I don’t think this one would draw me in,’ and ‘This one, I’ve seen a

hundred times.’ In other words, when discrepant imagery is used, the brand is both experienced (e.g.

‘off-the-wall’), and differentiated (e.g. ‘sticking out’), in a positive way (‘really interesting’). The

prediction would be that under specific experimental conditions, for particular kinds of consumers,

idealized imagery will be ignored or not engaged, and fail to have a positive impact on consumer

response. Conversely, discrepant imagery will be engaged and will shift consumer response in a

positive direction – despite, or perhaps even because of, its negative character.




Conclusion

In this paper, we challenged the prevailing view of fashion advertising by testing two unexamined

assumptions. Using a series of content analyses, we demonstrated that more than one-quarter of

contemporary women’s fashion advertisements do not contain idealized images of beautiful

models, luxurious goods, and lovely settings, and that this discrepant imagery has increased over

the past twenty years. Importantly, this type of discrepant imagery is rarely used in ads for tradi-

tional beauty products, suggesting that fashion advertising may point to a distinctive, word-free

route to persuasion. Second, using a survey and three in-depth interviews, we show that female

consumers, when exposed to fashion advertising, do not report a predominance of negative emo-

tions such as might undermine their sense of self or harm their well-being. Instead, women report

mostly positive emotions in response to fashion advertising. In summary, this paper recovers for

marketing scholarship a lost treasure: the distinctive character of fashion advertising and women’s

positive response to it.

A key limitation of this study is that its examination of fashion advertising is restricted to

a specific social and cultural context, primarily that of affluent North American women readers.

Both culture and ethnicity play a role in response to ad images, and we also know that dressing the

body is a gendered activity (Entwistle, 2000). Consequently, we cannot know whether the inci-

dence of discrepant imagery attested by the content analyses can be generalized to fashion

advertising in other societies or cultures. Likewise, we cannot know whether the positive responses

seen in the survey findings will generalize to responses from women occupying a different social

position – or to men. With respect to men, research on the social impact of advertising has largely

followed the women’s tradition of examining male models’ appearances (Law and Labre, 2002;

Rohlinger, 2002) and roles (Patterson and Elliott, 2002; Schroeder and Zwick, 2004) and tying

these idealized images to self-dissatisfaction (Gulas and McKeage, 2000; Johnson et al., 2007).

Although men were not the focus of this paper, our finding that discrepant imagery is common

in men’s fashion advertising, as in women’s fashion advertising, will need to be addressed in future

work on the social impact of advertising on men.

In conclusion, we find that fashion advertising, and consumer response to it, does not conform

to prevailing views. Fashion advertising does not provide a handy club with which to beat mar-

keters. Instead, it provides a challenge to conventional thinking about how advertising can build

brands, and an opportunity to extend marketing theory to account for a wider range of effective ad

imagery and different kinds of consumer response.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Laura Bright, Tamara Colton, and Jennifer Shewchuk for their research assistance.

Funding Statement

Funding for this research program was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of

Canada.

Notes

1. The survey referred to these as ‘personal care’ ads and coupled this term with hair care, skin care, and cosmetics

as examples.

2. The other publications typically identified as US women’s fashion magazines are Elle, Harper’s Bazaar,

and W, all of which have fewer readers than Vogue or Vanity Fair. Although ads for clothing also appear in




other women’s magazines, the editorial content of these other magazines does not focus intensively on

fashion.

3. Subsequent to Nelson (1970), Darby and Karni (1973) introduced the category of credence goods, where

quality is not readily ascertainable by the consumer before or after purchase. Taste goods cannot be cre-

dence goods. Women can know exactly which branded clothing items are to their taste, and which are not,

whether before or after purchase, if they have an opportunity to see branded clothing in context, as in the

fashion ad examples reproduced in this paper. Subjective taste, by definition, is knowable by the subject.

Note also that in our usage, ‘subjective’ refers to the consumer’s judgment, and not to claims made in the

ad, as in Ford et al. (1990). Fashion ads, as noted earlier, typically include no verbal claim.

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